BACKGROUND: Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) has
made misleading statements regarding the resistance of U.S. nuclear
power plants to terrorist attacks. Rebuttal statements come from
a National Center for Public Policy Research paper written by
nuclear scientists Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford and
an interview with Gerald Marsh.

Rep. Markey: "Recent studies have concluded that
an aircraft attack on spent nuclear fuel could have the same
impact as a ten kiloton nuclear bomb..."

Scientists: "If the dry-storage facility were
directly hit by the jetliner, a few [fuel storage] casks might
be broken, but the ensuring fire could not disperse a large amount
of radioactivity."

Rep. Markey: "These facilities are extremely vulnerable,
and yet the consequences of a terrorist attack that successfully
breaches the spent nuclear fuel storage casks could release enough
radioactive material to make entire communities uninhabitable
for years..."

Scientists: "Perhaps the shock wave [of an explosion
would] lift some radioactive debris out of the [fuel storage]
pool and scatter it near the building. Jet fuel [could] run into
the [fuel storage] pool and burn. The fire [would not be] hot
enough even to melt the reactor fuel pelletsNo significant irradiation
of members of the public would be expected, the most serious
consequences [would] probably be anxiety and possibly panic."

Rep. Markey: "If an aircraft were to crash into
a double enveloped containment structure [which surrounds all
nuclear reactors] the subsequent vaporization and ignition of
the resulting vapor-air mixture could lead to a rather violent
explosion environment..."

Scientists: "At [the reactor accident at] Chernobyl
there was a steam explosion, but it took a persistent graphite
fire to inject the radioactivity into the atmosphere Western
power reactors do not use graphite - there can be no fire, and
without a fire there is no plausible way to put such a large
amount of radioactivity into the atmosphere..."

Rep. Markey: "If only one percent of the fuel,
say 500 lb for a FB-111 fighter plane, is involved in such an
event, the blast environment will be equivalent to the detonation
of approximately 1,000 lb of TNT."

Scientists: "The burning jet fuel would scarcely
aggravate the situation-it would be distributed over a considerable
area, and would burn off well before the molten reactor fuel
penetrated the reactor vessel."

Rep. Markey: "Nuclear power plants were not specifically
designed to withstand such [airplane] crashes."

Scientists: "While the containment vessels [which
surround all nuclear reactors] have not been specifically designed
to withstand the impact of a large aircraft, that does not mean
a containment vessel would collapse upon attack. Quite the contrary
-­ the situation is like a thrown egg hitting a brick wall."

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The National Policy Analysis
paper "Terrorism and Nuclear Power: What are the Risks?,"published by the National Center for Public Policy Research,
can be found online at http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA374.html.
Gerald Marsh is a physicist who served with the U.S. START delegation
and was a consultant to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations
on strategic nuclear policy and technology for many years. He
is an advisory board member of The National Center for Public
Policy Research's John P. McGovern, MD Center for Environmental
and Regulatory Affairs. George Stanford is a nuclear reactor physicist,
now retired from Argonne National Laboratory after a career of
experimental work pertaining to power-reactor safety.